Directed by Paolo Strippoli (A Classic Horror Story) and written by Strippoli, Jacopo Del Giudice and Gustavo Hernández, Flowing is about a strange phenomenon in Rome: every time it rains, the manholes unleash a fog of unknown origin and composition. Whoever breathes this gas must deal with their most repressed feelings.
The Morel family are probably the best — or the worst — people to huff in those aromas. Ever since the death of matriarch Cristina in an accident a year ago, Thomas and their son Enrico have stopped speaking, father blaming son and son retreating into violence and an affair with an older woman who reminds him of his lost mother. The youngest, Barbara, is still physically dealing with the ramifications of the accident and reminds Enrico of his failure every time he sees her.
Now, as the fog grows, they must all face whatever is in the past if they hope to make it to tomorrow.
This looked gorgeous and man, it gets dark. Interesting idea and you know, stay out of the sewers.
Tetteh Quarshie was a Ghanaian blacksmith and agriculturalist directly responsible for the introduction of cocoa to Ghana, which today constitute one of the major export crops of the country’s economy. His mother died giving birth to him and he went up against the colonial masters from Spain who had placed a death penalty on anyone who smuggles cocoa seeds off the island of Fernando Po in Guinea. Quarshie did exactly that, bringing the seeds home and going directly against the colonial enslavers.
Director and writer Frank Fiifi Gharbin has transformed the life of this real person into historical fantasy, making a story of the past vibrant and exciting for today’s audiences. The joy of a film festival is the chance to discover new things from countries that I may never learn about. Seek this out and do the same.
Heroes of Africa is playing at Fantastic Fest as part of the Burnt Ends selections.
Directors and stars Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Benson also wrote the script) also made Spring, The Endless, Synchronic and Resolution — as well as episodes of Marvel’s Moon Knight and Loki as well as Archive 81 and The Twilight Zone together.
This time, they play Levi and John, two neighbors in a Los Angeles apartment building who discover a paranormal event and decide to use what they’ve experienced to become rich and famous. The only problem is that dealing with the unknown — whether supernatural or between two people that barely know one another — can be dangerous.
This is a small movie with big ideas, a way of filming necessitated by being created in COVID-19 isolation, but what emerges is the idea that within ourselves and the world that there are so many layers yet peeling back those very same layers can have destructive results.
Shot with a crew of three — Benson, Moorhead and producing partner David Lawson Jr. — this is a hang-out film of two people confronting a gravitational anomaly within the walls of a no-lease apartment complex that seemingly also keeps them within its gravitational orbit, too focused on making it or working to escape but trapped forever within the same four walls.
From seeing the same shape throughout Los Angeles to followers of Pythagoras and cats using parasites to increase mental illness, there are secrets within every story told. There are even conspiracies between the two leads, as Levi has a criminal record that he doesn’t want to discuss and John is part of a religion that could very well be called a cult, even if his homosexuality may not allow him to be fully part of the sect he’s grown up in.
I saw someone comment that this is Under the Silver Lake for poor people and that makes sense. It never reaches the mania of that film, but it does expand in ever stranger circles, using multiple film techniques and media — even old home movies — to get to the truth, which even by the end of the film is only known by one of the leads and there’s no way he can explain it to the other.
You may have grown up afraid of Chucky but you didn’t live the life of Kyra Elise Gardner, the director and writer (with Jason Strickland) of this documentary, as she’s the daughter of special effects master Tony Gardner, and in her house were the half-built parts of Chucky and Tiffany from the movie Seed of Chuckie onward.
She told Entertainment Weekly: “My mom said when I was leaving preschool (one) day, I told my teacher that I couldn’t go home because the bad people were there. My teacher almost called CPS on my parents because she thought that they were hitting me. I didn’t understand that it was dolls. It was scared of Chucky, so it was absolutely frightening.”
Building on the short Dollhouse that she made in college, Gardner has filmed moments with her father, as well as interviews with creator Don Mancini; producer David Kirschner; actors Alex Vincent, Lin Shaye, Marlon Wayans, Abigail Breslin and Jennifer Tilly; Chucky’s voice Brad Dourif and his actress daughter Fiona Dourif (who has been in two Child’s Play movies and the new TV show); and even John Waters, who gleefully recalls having his face burned off by acid in Seed of Chucky.
Beyond serving as a much needed documentary about this horror series, it’s interesting to get into the shared experiences and family feeling — Fiona Dourif and Gardner bonded over childhoods with often work-absent fathers — that have grown along the way. I’d also love a doc that tries to get to the bottom of how Jennifer Tilly stays so perfect all these years, if anyone would like to make that.
Once, Jacky (Thomas Parigi) was content to wander the village and record sounds to use in ths songs that he made in secret. But after the death of his grandmother Gisèle, who was known to be the village healer and magnetizer, he finds himself developing her powers. Just in time — wolves are attacking and a young girl named Elsa has shown up either suffering from a mystery disease or possession. Or maybe she’s doing Blood On Satan’s Claw cosplay.
Lucas Delange, who directed and co-wrote this with Olivier Strauss, has an eye for beauty. Jacky has an eye toward dreams and miracles, which may not work outside the world of fantasy. It’s an interesting film that definitely will get you thinking.
The Strange Case of Jacky Caillou is playing at Fantastic Fest.
The same people who made this made the equally wild Lake Michigan Monster. Let me sell you on this: it’s a Merrie Melodies-influenced black and white no dialogue movie about an applejack maker whose life is ruined by beavers, so he fights back against them as a trapped and finds himself up against, well, hundreds of them.
Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who co-wrote this with director Mike Cheslik) must survive a brutal winter, then learn how to trap fur, selling the dead beavers to The Merchant (Doug Mancheski) while making eyes at his daughter The Furrier (Olivia Graves).
All the while, the beavers are planning to destroy mankind.
This movie is an absolute joy, a quick moving living and breathing cartoon in which one man challenges the odds and the beavers and the snow and the sharp objects and oh man, this was great.
Hundreds of Beavers is playing as part of the Burnt Ends part of Fantastic Fest.
Grady Hendrix is into the best stuff: karate movies, 70s horror paperbacks, Satan…this movie is based on his novel of the same name, telling the story of best friends Abby (Elsie Fisher) and Gretchen (Amiah Miller) who have grown up together and are lamenting the fact that they will soon be living in separate states soon. They decide to go off to a literal cabin in the woods with their friends — maybe acquaintances is a better term — Glee (Cathy Ang), Margaret (Rachel Ogechi Kanu) and her boyfriend Wally (Clayton Royal Johnson) and drop acid.
What happens next is a Jack Chick story come to life: Abby and Gretchen trip balls, explore a house that once had occult rituals conducted inside it and Gretchen gets possessed to the point that she’s no longer Abby’s best friend, along with nearly murdering Glee with her peanut allergy and infesting Margaret with worms.
There’s only one person who can help: weightlifter for Christ and yogurt obsessive Christian Lemon (Christopher Lowell), who can see the demon inside Gretchen and has always wanted to complete an exorcism.
Directed by Damon Thomas from a script by Jenna Lamia, this movie feels like it’s trying to be the 80s we only know from nostalgic media that doesn’t look like the 80s. The soundtrack is very all over the place and as much as I love Culture Club, kids in 1988 had moved on from them. That said, this has a disgusting worm scene, more than enough possessed vomit and Fisher and Miller have a great chemistry together that makes you believe that they’re friends.
I’d love someone that knows the book to let me know how close to the source material this got. I had fun with this, even if at times it felt like a trifle, but then again, isn’t a teen comedy supposed to feel that way? It’s no Jennifer’s Body, but honestly, what other female-empowered horror movie has ever gone that hard?
The Fantastic Fest 2022 Shoft Fuse program promises “a monster roller coaster that takes you to not only the grotesquely sensual and painfully real, but also to the most surreal of other worlds.” There are nine movies to watch and you can see them for yourself when you buy a virtual badge here.
Blood Rites (2022): Directed by Helena Coan and written by Polly Stenham (The Neon Demon) based on the story by Daisy Johnson from her book Fen Stories, this is all about Arabella (Ellis George), Rose (Mirren Mack) and Great (Ella-Rae Smith), three vampiric women losing control as they hide in a house in the English Fens. This seems like a first version of a longer and more complex film, but for what exists now, it’s really well made and has some moments of true horror as you watch these young women feed. All three leads are quite talented and really embody their roles.
The novel that this was based on never explains if the girls are vampires, cannibals or just insane; hanging out a pub called the Fox and Hound, luring men back to their home to surround and devour. Johnson sets up the women quite starkly: “When we were younger we learnt men the way other people learnt languages or the violin. We cared only for what they wanted so much it ruined them. Men could pretend they were otherwise, could enact the illusion of self-control, but we knew the running stress of their minds.”
This is quick, dark and makes you want to drink more.
From.Beyond (2022): Through the use of found footage and genre mixing, From.Beyond documents several of mankind’s first encounters with life from other planets. Directed by Fredrik S. Hana, who wrote this movie with Jamie Turville — and directed one of my favorite videos for Kvelertak’s “Månelyst” which references tons of horror movies — this is one odd short.
Hana creates a fake reality within this movie, a series of moments of various lives as they come to realization with the fact that we are no longer alone and never were. This is more art than commerce and I mean that with the greatest of meanings; I also believe that it’s the closest I’ve seen a movie get to what actual Disclosure will be like. This short feels occult; it is the hidden made true.
Gnomes (2022): Joggers have no idea that they’re about to enter the world of murderous sausage making gnomes who lure them in with mysterious glowing mushrooms. This movie has shocking amounts of gore and I say that lovingly; director Ruwan Suresh Heggelman, who wrote this with Jasper ten Hoor and Richard Raaphorst, knows how to keep things moving as fast as possible. We’re here to watch gnomes eat human beings and we get it. Oh do we get it.
I don’t even want to know what kind of Smurfs movie Heggelman could make. The horror. The horror.
In the Flesh (2022): Every morning, Tracey uses her bathtub faucet to get off. Then there’s this one time that instead of giving her the orgasm she craves, she instead gets a blast of black goo that won’t stop leaking out of her body. She loses her phone into the tub filled with sewage and must confront the super — and maybe destroy him — if she ever wants to get that elusive bit of bliss and wash all that black sludge out of her hair. Cheers to Daphne Gardner for this blast of fun.
The Night Shift (2022): An exhausted ambulance driver still dealing with his wife’s murder struggles through a long night shift which includes an encounter with a vampire using accidents to gain new victims. Filmed in the United Arab Emirates by director Ali F. Mustafa, who co-wrote this with Ahmad Abdulghani Alredha, this feels like it could easily be a much longer movie. The production is high quality and there are plenty of vehicular stunts. In fact, this has a bigger budget than most full-length streaming films that I watch. The idea of a vampire keeping the same hours as an EMT crew is a strong one and I’d love to see what this could become as it grows from a short.
Prom Car ’91 (2022): Let me fast forward this review and just say that this short is more than 100% everything I look for in movies. It’s so well shot and creative that even though you may have seen its story told before, you’ve never seen it told so well.
Carrie (McKenna Marmolejo, who owns every second she’s on screeen) and Don (Max Jablow) plan to have sex for the first time in the back of Don’s dad’s minivan on prom night. They’re invisible kids in 1991 but are the kind of geeks that rule the world today. He writes Rush-like science fiction songs about her; she watches Shaw Brothers movies. But just as they prepare to change their lives with some underage sex, they watch prom queen get slashed by two of their teachers, Mr. Little (Yuri Lowenthal, the video game voice of Spider-Man) and Ms. Cox (Jayne McLendon).
I can’t even emphasize how perfect every moment of this short is. It’s so charming, so filled with absolute joy. It made my day so much better watching it and I’m still smiling about it.
Ringworms (2022): A sinister cult looks to gain occult power through cursed worms and find the perfect host within Abbie, a young woman with commitment issues hours away from receiving a marriage proposal from the boyfriend she doesn’t even think she likes. Faye Nightingale, who plays the lead, is absolutely supercharged awesomeness; so is the direction by Will Lee. A splatter relationship movie that ends with a double blast of garbage disposal and black vomit mania, then topped by a head graphically splitting open to reveal a hand? Oh man — I loved every moment. I want more. So much more.
Roach Love (2022): Director Jacen Tan said, “We self-financed this low/no budget short because it’s too weird to be green-lit or funded by anyone.” This is a quick black and white movie about the erotic pleasures of stepping on cockroaches, a couple that shares this fetish and the comeuppance one of them earns. It’s well-shot and yes, very weird. You’ll see the ending coming but enjoy it anyway.
Swept Under (2022): Ethan Soo has directed a film that yes, is about a cursed carpet given to a young Cambodian man by his sister that ends up murdering him, but I loved that this movie efficiently and effectively contains a message about the way America’s policing the world has a dark history that is never discussed. There are some horrific real and manufactured moments in this film that really could be an entire anthology, as long as it keeps the perfect closing shot that this has.
There’s a shot in here of all the faces trapped within the carpet that is just plain sinister. There are so many layers to this story, even down to the disappearance of the Cambodian man at the end, that tie so perfectly into the sad story we have written. A near-perfect analogy well-told. Soo is one to keep an eye on.
The night before Henry (Victor Meutelet) starts his mandatory military service, his friends Sonia (Sofia Lesaffre) and Max (Kassim Meesters) take him drinking and then into the catacombs of Paris, discovering tunnels that had been thoroughly destroyed during the Second World War. Chased by skinheads deep into the tunnels beneath the streets of the City of Lights, they find the 717 Bunker, an abandoned Nazi fortress that may not be abandoned.
Directed by Grégory Beghin and written by Nicolas Tackian, this film is claustrophobic — of course, what do you expect from being in the Paris catacombs? — and once it gets to the gore, it delivers. It’s just not very exciting until it actually gets there. That said, the closing moments are harrowing and make up for how slow going it is in other places.
Movies like this remind me to just stay in my movie room and not do spelunking or urban exploration.
Two decades after a tragedy with her sister, Šarlota — pronounced Charlotta — comes back to her remote mountain hometown in Slovakia to claim an inheritance left by her dead mother. Yet when she gets there, her mother’s house has burned to the ground. Staying in her former neighbor’s abandoned cabin — rumored to have been a witch’s house — Šarlota remembers the misogyny, patriarchy and superstition that she had left. As she approaches a herbalist named Mira, the locals believe Šarlota must also be a witch.
A deserved winner of the Best Picture in the Cineasti del Presente Competition at the Locarno Film Festival, director Tereza Nvotová has made a movie that looks absolutely gorgeous and from another world. The witch sabbath scene in this is incredibly evocative and blew me away.
We live in a world that fears what it does not understand and seeks to hold back things of beauty and passion. These issues exist from big cities to small towns and everywhere in between; things are sliding back into a world where women no longer even have autonomy over their own bodies. Nightsiren presents a place where the power within women is challenged by old beliefs and an even older guard.
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